A legal campaign against the use of plastic bullets was launched today when a man whose arm was broken during recent rioting in the Short Strand area of Belfast lodged a test case compensation claim.
Mr Peter Montgomery, from the Markets area of Belfast, had his arm in plaster when he arrived at the Law Courts along with a group of people who had also been injured by plastic bullets.
Mr Montgomery's High Court writ named the Policing Board as a defendant along with the Chief Constable of the PSNI and the Ministry of Defence.
It is the first time the Board has been sued in a plastic bullet case. Lawyers for Mr Montgomery alleged the Board was negligent in providing 50,000 of the L21A1 plastic baton rounds - they replaced rubber bullets in June last year - by "failure to identify the inherent dangers" in the use of them.
His solicitor Mr Kevin Winters said: "We represent a large number of victims from various areas who have been badly injured as a result of the use of these potentially fatal weapons.
"Over the years the Chief Constable's Office and the Ministry of Defence have been willing to pay out in excess of £2.5 million in compensation to victims of these bullets.
"This has meant that the courts have been prevented from ruling on the legitimacy of the use of plastic bullets and consequently this has continued without censure."
The court writ also claimed aggravated and exemplary damages "on the basis that the conduct of the defendants was oppressive, arbitrary, humiliating and high handed and amounted to outrageous conduct inconsistent with their public responsibilities."